Read the full post on the Impact Pricing website.

Jon Jennings, the founder of Jennings executive search, discusses his process of matching a company’s pricing roles and strategies with the right talent with Mark Stiving, the founder of Impact Pricing, in an insightful 30 minute podcast. More details below.

About the Pricing Roles Podcast Episode

In this episode, Jon talks about how he matches pricing talents depending on a strategy the company uses and each company’s preferences, what screening process he uses when looking for pricing people.  He also shares how he guides companies in choosing the best pricing leader they can get as sometimes they don’t know what they are looking for. He also emphasizes on skill sets a pricing person should develop and acquire early on as he starts to elevate his career along the way.

About Impact Pricing

Mark Stiving, Ph.D., the Chief Pricing Educator (and founder), has been in pricing since 1996. His mission is to help expand companies and grow people’s careers by sharing his knowledge of value and pricing. Mark and the company are based in Reno, NV but the rest of the team is dispersed around the world.

Impact Pricing’s mission is to educate companies about value based pricing, which simply means charge what a customer is willing to pay. Once a company starts down that path, it’s quickly apparent that they require a much deeper understanding of value.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to build out your skillset as a pricing person so you get more relevant in today’s competitive world of pricing
• Find someone who knows Pricing people if you are looking to hire Pricing leaders
• Discover how to find Pricing people that match your company’s strategies to get a good fit to impact the business

“Think about what you’re leaving on the table. If you’re not trying to be creative around pricing roles, you’re losing. If you’re not thinking about ways to add some sort of dynamic element in trying to find ways to increase profitability from that standpoint, then someone else is.”

– Jon Jennings

Topics Covered:

01:39 – How he got into Pricing

03:15 – What do they focus on when hiring Pricing roles

03:50 – How the company’s strategy matter when hiring Pricing people

05:42 – Delineation of roles among Pricing analyst, the VP, and the middle level

07:03 – HIs screening when looking for Pricing leaders

08:37 – How they provide guidance to companies when looking for Pricing leaders

09:39 – Building off of the job description, value-based principles, and the roadmap of the company to find potential Pricing leaders

11:53 – How he helps clients find Pricing people

13:49 – Starting with questions to convince a company to hire a pricing person

15:10 – Suggesting to companies to listen to Impact Pricing  

15:32 – How value-based pricing makes sense in the world of recruitment

16:48 – Skillset you need to build as a pricing person early on in your career

18:16 – What more you can do to expand your capabilities as a Pricing person

19:40 – Beg, borrow and steal

20:44 – Be a driver and not a whiner

21:06 – Are pricing people well compensated

22:37 – Setting differentiators for Pricing roles to match with client companies preferences

23:48 – Setting expectations for yourself and executing it

25:20 – The strengths and weaknesses of a consulting talent

27:15 – HIs impactful advice to help you in your business

Key Takeaways:

“Our job is to find people who make impacts with fitting culturally and have a history of really impacting the business.” – Jon Jennings

“It’s really about me kind of telling them [client companies] a story, and asking questions to see if I can guide them to a more dynamic solution if they’re not already there.” – Jon Jennings

“I always start with questions. Because I can’t give advice without context.” – Jon Jennings

“If I’m advising someone, I have to build out their skill set. There’s a couple of elements that you want especially nowadays. Get into as much data science as you can, teach yourself coding. It doesn’t matter, as you get to higher levels, obviously, you’re not going to utilize that as much, but you’re going to still use that a little bit.” – Jon Jennings

“As you move up the organization, it’s about reaching out across company lines, and not being afraid to go talk to the marketing person, pick people’s brains. Try to expand that knowledge as much as you can and just always be learning. That’s how you can elevate your career.” – Jon Jennings

“Be a driver. Don’t be afraid to challenge above you. If you believe in your concept, just be the squeaky wheel until you get some traction.”   – Jon Jennings

“Being mindful of constantly trying to improve your strategy and looking at competitive advantage and all different elements is 100% key.” – Jon Jennings

Resources Mentioned:

• Professional Pricing Society
• McKinsey
• BCG

Connect with Jon Jennings:

• jenningsexec.com
• LinkedIn
• Email: jon@jenningsexec.com

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